


Not Going Anywhere

by Severina



Category: Die Hard (Movies)
Genre: Community: 1_million_words, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-23 18:19:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19706872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: "This is not a dream. This is really happening."





	Not Going Anywhere

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt at LJ's 1_million_words weekend challenge.

At first Matt feels stunned, incredulous. The explosion had rocked the tunnel and Matt was blown away by the ingenuity of it, the car flying through the air, the crunch of metal and the wave of heat. He's elated when he reaches McClane's side, despite the pain in his knees and the tightness in his chest; feels like pulling a Bender and fist pumping the air. They won. The bad guys were toast. 

He feels giddy with relief. He even laughs at McClane's lame jokes.

Reality comes crashing back quickly enough. It starts when the man approaches them, blood soaking into his grey beard. His arm is around an elderly lady, maybe his wife, who is limping at his side. The remains of their little red Subaru is nothing but a smear on the pavement; the tractor trailer that hit them is wedged against the wall of the tunnel. It's a miracle they weren't killed. 

Matt squints. The driver of the transport truck doesn't appear to have been that lucky.

He doesn't feel like laughing much after that.

The remains of the helicopter is still smoldering on the entry ramp when John McClane pulls himself up from the ground and starts redirecting people toward the other end of the tunnel. Like this is just another day on the job. Pick up a completely innocent hacker, get fired upon by goons with automatic weapons, nearly get creamed by a transport truck in an underground tunnel, destroy helicopter by throwing a car at it. No big deal.

For the most part everybody stuck with them obeys McClane without question, stumbling like slack-jawed zombies toward the literal light at the end of the tunnel. Hell, Matt starts to follow directions as good as the next zombie, taking a few stumbling steps after McClane until he finds his own feet stuck to the ground. Partially because of the whole _hard to breathe_ thing, but also because he can't stop thinking about how there were at least two guys in that copter who are now probably nothing more than bits of charred bone and chunks of flesh. He squints at the debris and even though he _knows_ he is too far away to make anything out, it still doesn't take much for his imagination to replace a glinting lump of fuselage with a severed forearm, the spill of oil with the sheen of blood.

"Kid? C'mon, get your ass in gear, we gotta move!"

Matt takes a shuddering breath, inhales diesel and--

_charred flesh_

\--burnt rubber, and his stomach roils. 

"Kid, I ain't gonna… whoa, okay. Head down, between your legs."

Matt's body feels like rubber, too, and his legs are shaking, and he's almost certain he's going to eat pavement in about two point five seconds. But then McClane is easing him down onto his butt on the concrete, McClane's big hand warm on the back of his neck as he urges him to double over, McClane's whiskey-sour voice encouraging him to take deep breaths. The black stars that were dancing behind his eyelids begin to recede. He's still not sure that he'd be all the way back from the edge were it not for John's fingers slowly and calmly massaging his neck, riffling through his long hair and soothing with his fingertips.

"Okay?" John asks.

"This is not a dream. This is really happening," Matt mumbles to the pavement in response.

"Not a dream, kid," John says. "But I'm not gonna let anything happen to you, you hear me?"

Matt forces himself to lift his head; John's hand drifts away and Matt bites down on the sudden feeling of disappointment. He feels weightless, like John's calloused fingers were the only thing holding him to the earth. Feels now like he might drift away on the air currents, join the tiny flickering bits of debris that dance around the downed helicopter.

"They have access to the police department's comm lines, to the city's electrical grid, they have… helicopters and assault rifles… and crazy circus freaks chasing us! We're just two people! We can't…"

"We can," John says. "Can't ain't in my vocabulary, kid. Now you're gonna get off your ass and we're gonna get outta here and find the nearest police station. Get you into protective custody."

"Protective custody?"

"Get you to a safe house," John clarifies.

"A safe…" Matt shakes his head. That might be a bad idea because his neck is still all loosey-goosey and his stomach hasn't quite settled yet, but _thinking_? Thinking is what he does best. "Okay, McClane, we've already established that these guys are able to patch in to the department's communication system. Do you really think they won't be able to access a numerated list of every safe house in the system? Sneak in through a back door and they can have the exact place the cops have stashed me in five minutes. Trust me, McClane, this is what I _do_."

"Yeah, kid, I get that," McClane grunts out. "That's why we're in this damn mess to begin with."

At least half a dozen rejoinders zip through his head at that, but... _point_. So he lets McClane pull him to his feet, only then realizing that the last of the morning commuters have already staggered past him to the other end of the tunnel. The stench of burning chopper fuel hangs in the dead air, coats his nostrils and the back of his throat. And much as he doesn't want to look _back_ to melted titanium and warped blades, to smoldering corpses who used to be men… he always doesn't want to look _forward_ to the yawning mouth of the tunnel and the grim surprises that could await out in the sunlight.

McClane seems to know what he's thinking whether he says it aloud or not. "Not going that way," he says, gesturing toward the distant opening. He winces, and a fresh trickle of blood seeps from the cut above his eye, from the gash in his cheek "Should be an access tunnel a couple hundred feet down this way…"

McClane turns. McClane starts to walk away, wending between crushed fenders and crumpled trucks, boots crunching through broken glass.

The effect is like an anvil being dropped on his chest, like icicles freezing his blood, like a giant fist slowly squeezing his heart. He can't breathe but he _can_ move, lurching forward, kicking a loose bumper, nearly stumbling over a car door that's been ripped from its hinges, not looking at the cracked windshield of the transport truck, the pinwheel of broken glass and the red blotch at its centre and the shadowy, slumped form of the driver lolling against the seat.

He nearly falls against McClane when he reaches him, one hand clawing at his bicep. Fabric twisting in his fingers.

"Don't leave me," he says.

And Matt remembers McClane's prone body against his as gunfire rattled around them and his apartment was blown to smithereens; McClane's little smirk when he teased him about jogging; McClane really _listening_ to him in the back of that police car; McClane throwing himself into traffic and curling around him and protecting him as the transport truck careened toward them. And he's not sure what he's asking of John McClane, but if he'll just agree to stay _now_ he'll have time to figure it out.

"Not goin' anywhere without ya, kid," McClane says. "You can count on that, you hear?"

When McClane's eyes meet his, Matt can almost believe that McClane's agreeing to a lot more than just one day.

Matt manages a shaky nod, disentangles his fingers from their crab-grip on McClane's shirt. The anvil rises, his blood warms, his heart thumps along. They are still being chased by murderous thugs but McClane seems to think that they can win. If he can just get through this one day, then he'll start thinking about the days and weeks that follow… and whether John McClane will be a part of them. 

He's pretty sure he wants John McClane to be a part of them.

For now, he'll follow McClane out of the tunnel, into the street, even to a police station if that's what he wants. But there'll be no changing of the guard, no safe house.

He's not going anywhere without John McClane, either.


End file.
